The Stove That Blew Up

BECKY: Two weeks ago our stove blew up. Well, sort of. There was a big spark and I consider that to be an explosion. I am dedicating this blog to the exceptional appliance this avocado stove and oven was.

This was the first oven that I learned to bake bread in. My first loaf of bread was still gooey inside, but this was not the fault of the oven. This was purely the fault of the baker. I also have made dozens of delicious Symphony Bar Cookies in this oven. I can still remember the big spill in the bottom of the oven from multiple foods that have completely boiled over. I can't help but be grateful that I will not need to scrub that thing till my arm is numb before we move out of apartment. Even though it is about 45 years old, it still cooked evenly! They just don't make things like they used to.

Onto the stove. I used this thing a lot. the knobs were a little stiff, but they always turned on, well all but one. I also experimented with new foods on this stove and most of them were delicious (according to Jarred). We made many a yummy breakfasts on those burners. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, hash browns...those poor hash browns. That's what I was cooking when the stove blew up.

I was just enjoying a lovely, lazy Sunday morning making breakfast. I started with the hash browns and sausage because they took the longest. The hash browns were starting to smell yummy, but then I could smell them starting to burn a little bit. Confused, I turned down the knob to medium-low, yet the burner kept getting hotter. Pretty soon my lovely hash browns were turning black! I was so frustrated so I turned the knob to the lowest setting and hoisted the skillet off the stove to start turning the taters over. As I was about to set the skillet back down onto the burner, there was a huge loud spark that shot out from under the knob. It scared me so much that I even screamed. Jarred was still in bed, but didn't bother to come save me when I screamed because apparently I scream quite often when I cook. After the spark, our house was flooded with the horrible smell of an electrical fire. I don't know if you have ever smelled this before, but it makes you want to throw up. This smell lasted for about 5 days. This is the result of the stove. It isn't a huge burn mark, but you can see the black on the right side of the oven door.



We will be without the use of this delightful appliance for at least another week because apparently they make stoves a little bit bigger these days and the bottom drawer will need to be cut out since buying a drop in style is extremely expensive. So, our little apartment will be getting a little renovation. It will be sad to see this one go because that means we will only have one thing left in our kitchen that matches the color of our dishes exactly: our sink. The avocado fridge went out the day we moved in, now the stove/oven is leaving us, and our land lord is now spreading rumors about replacing the sink to match the rest of the kitchen. Sad day, our kitchen is losing its charm.